Need Help With a BBB Umbria - No COM

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ashdigger

Lifer
Jul 30, 2016
11,378
70,056
60
Vegas Baby!!!
Here is a BBB Umbria that doesn’t have any other nomenclature on the shank. The stem has BBB embedded in it and an Orific Bit. No use of “Own Make”, “Best Make”, etc.

The construction is all early 1900-1920’s but curious minds want some confirmation, education and consternation.

Here’s the pictures.

19903BF7-315E-4B83-8EC0-E542239E4A6D.jpeg4D81B1F3-8B7E-4665-967B-9FE30126FBBB.jpeg321F4ED5-20C3-4499-90F4-A4E8E42ED5AA.jpeg549DC827-A6A7-43A3-B841-A64C5CD6E6E7.jpeg8A67B41A-C414-4A04-AD96-00212BC30F4B.jpegB2D1216B-F7F4-4446-B556-91A04D69F16E.jpeg
 

jguss

Lifer
Jul 7, 2013
2,412
6,215
In my experience the lack of a COM is generally a pretty good indicator that wherever a pipe was made it wasn’t England. There are exceptions of course.

In this case I’m pretty sure that the Umbria was made at the BBB factory in College Point (at 131st Street and Fourteenth Avenue) when Frankau still owned it, which spanned the interval from its establishment during WW1 (in early 1917 as I recall) through the first part of 1924. At that point the facility was shuttered and the property sold as one element in a series of ultimately unsuccessful efforts to stem losses ironically caused, in part, by over-expansion in America and China. Despite its best efforts Frankau wound up in bankruptcy in 1926, was purchased, and then thrown into the pot by its new owners (the Adler family) as one of the many entities involved in the formation of Cadogan.
 

BROBS

Lifer
Nov 13, 2019
11,765
40,026
IA
In my experience the lack of a COM is generally a pretty good indicator that wherever a pipe was made it wasn’t England. There are exceptions of course.

In this case I’m pretty sure that the Umbria was made at the BBB factory in College Point (at 131st Street and Fourteenth Avenue) when Frankau still owned it, which spanned the interval from its establishment during WW1 (in early 1917 as I recall) through the first part of 1924. At that point the facility was shuttered and the property sold as one element in a series of ultimately unsuccessful efforts to stem losses ironically caused, in part, by over-expansion in America and China. Despite its best efforts Frankau wound up in bankruptcy in 1926, was purchased, and then thrown into the pot by its new owners (the Adler family) as one of the many entities involved in the formation of Cadogan.
Was going to guess US made. ?